There seems to be a wealth of organisms under the sea that are good for our health. True, some fish have those good omega-3s we need, and krill oil also gives us much-need omega-3s, but British scientists are working on a way to use coral to produce a “sunscreen pill.”

It seems that coral produces natural sunscreen compounds to protect itself from damaging UV rays. Scientists from King’s College London believe these compounds could be the basis for a new type of sunscreen in humans. The team took a 4-month trip to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia to study the “biochemical processes behind coral’s innate gift.” They studied samples from the Acroporal coral, an endangered species that scientists think can be replicated in the lab to produce these compounds.

The magic doesn’t just come from the coral itself, it actually comes from the relationship between the coral and the algae living within the coral that make the compounds together. Since coral can’t move around, they have to have a source of food to survive. The algae grows inside their tissue and needs sunlight as a source of energy. So, coral has to live in very shallow water. Since the waters are so clear and the coral is so close to the surface, they’re susceptible to sunburn, just like humans. You’ve probably seen white coral before that has lost its color due to “coral bleaching” which is the result of losing these symbiotic algae partners.

Diving down to depths of the ocean where there’s very little sunlight, the team collected corals and brought them back to the surface to see if they could induce them to start making the sunscreening compounds. The team was successful in doing that, so they’re working on using genetic engineering to recreate the compounds in the lab. They’ll then have a sustainable supply of the compound so they don’t have to go back to the Great Barrier Reef for samples. Plus, it’s an endangered species, so there are only so many samples they can legally take.

The plan is to recreate the sunscreen in test tubes and then test them on human skin samples left over from tummy tucks and other procedures. They’ve seen the sunscreen be effective in small fish that eat the sunscreen-compounds from the algae. These fish are then eaten by larger fish, and the sunscreen is passed through the food chain, benefiting each fish.

The team also wants to transplant the biosynthetic pathways from the corals into actual plants. If they’re high-valued crops, it’s possible that this would make them more resistant to sun damage, which can be a real problem in agriculture in third world countries.

Though the team doesn’t know how much sun protection it will actually give until they begin testing, they hope to start testing on humans soon.